South Korean workers were expelled Tuesday from a mountain resort jointly managed with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the deadlock over the stalled cross-border tour program deepens.

Fourteen South Koreans and two Korean-Chinese workers at the Mount Kumgang resort returned home earlier in the day, one day after the DPRK ordered them to leave within 72 hours.

The DPRK also announced it will begin the threatened disposal of South Korean properties at the resort, which it had seized in a unilateral move last year.

The measures are seen here as Pyongyang's response to Seoul's reluctance to resume the suspended joint tours to the scenic mountain just north of the border, once a rare source of hard cash for the cash-strapped country.

South Korea has expressed regret over the arbitrary disposal, to little avail. Hyundai Asan, a South Korean tour operator whose exclusive contract with the DPRK was unilaterally terminated earlier this year, also called on Pyongyang to withdraw the measures.

The tours to the mountain, launched in 1998 amid a growing rapprochement on the divided Korean peninsula, were suspended in 2008 after a shooting death of a South Korean tourist who ventured into a restricted military zone.

Seoul has long refused to reopen the tours without a proper investigation into the shooting death and safety guarantees, with the unification ministry here recently saying the 2008 shooting death lies "at the core of the current dispute" over the tours.

The assets subject to the planned disposal, including restaurants and a golf course, are believed to be worth 325.5 million U.S. dollars. Pyongyang seeks to develop the mountain area into a special zone for international tours.